Mitch McConnell’s Personal Mission To Keep Dark Money Flowing

This article by Brendan Fischer is published by NBC News. Here is an excerpt:

“Dark money” has featured prominently in Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. But some of those complaining loudest about dark money are uniquely responsible for the deluge of secret political spending that has corrupted U.S. politics.

On the day President Joe Biden announced Jackson’s nomination, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared she “was the favored choice of far-left dark-money groups.” During the first day of Jackson’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, feigned concern about the “troubling role of far-left dark money groups” in the judicial selection process.

Outside of the hearing room, Judicial Crisis Network — which pioneered dark money spending on judicial nominations — has dropped at least $2.5 million on ads attacking the “dark money” it claims is behind Jackson’s nomination. (These attacks are largely focused on Demand Justice, which formed in 2018 as a liberal counterweight to JCN, but whose spending thus far has been dwarfed by that of JCN.) As The Washington Post’s Fact Checker and others have pointed out, it is certainly ironic for a prominent dark money group to critique dark money.

Read the full story here.